It's not unusual that all 15 students in one of Dr. Maureen Eke's African American literature course sections at Central Michigan University are White. What's striking, however, is that Black students and their Black professor from a campus located hundreds of miles away are beamed onto a large television screen to join Dr. Eke and her students in class discussions and lectures.
For the students at historically Black University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff and their teacher, Dr. Bettye Williams, participation in these class discussions and lectures is made possible by interactive television equipment.
"African American literature, in essence, seems to be a natural way to create a community of learners between diverse institutions," Eke says.
The diversity movement in higher education has taken many forms in the past several years. Beyond recruiting a diverse array of students, administrators and faculty, some schools have begun requiring diversity courses in the curriculum and encouraging students to volunteer in nearby communities. Such initiatives have grown popular as educators increasingly search for ways to prepare their students to enter a diverse workforce.
In the case of Central Michigan University (CML) and the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff (UAPB), technology is seen as another tool for enhancing campus diversity. School officials and faculty members are in the third year of a five-year project that combines team teaching with two educational technologies: interactive television, or ITV, and the Internet. The Building Community Through Technology (BCTT) project, is funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for $1.3 million over five years.
The project uses television equipment to allow a teacher and his or her students on one campus to conduct a class with students and a faculty member on another campus, and vice versa. The respective classrooms are linked by interactive television technology, which involves the transmission of live audio and video through telephone lines. Thus, students and faculty at both locations participate in discussions, pose questions and conduct class exercises.
